McGuffey Community Mural Project

In partnership with The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and Charlottesville Mural Project, McGuffey Art Center is excited to announce a rotating mural space focused on amplifying the voices of muralists of color in the community and facilitating opportunities for BIAOC (Black, Indigenous, and Artists of Color) to expand their creative repertoire.

This outdoor mural will share our physical space with the community and display community voices, perspectives, and stories of BIAOC who are not sufficiently represented at McGuffey Art Center. After being painted, the mural will ideally provide a space for collective thought, encourage calls to action or engage dialogue, or attract small public gatherings inspired by the work or artist/s.

The mural on this wall will rotate every six months (starting late September), encouraging a variety of unique artistic perspectives, and showcasing the work of multiple artists a year. 

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How this project would work:
- A call for muralists (for individual artists as well as collaborative groups) will be released mid- to late- August 2020. 
- Muralists will be picked by the programming committee at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative alongside members from McGuffey’s Racial Equity and Inclusion Committee. 
- Muralists will be provided painting materials and an artist stipend. 
- All three organizations will work together to document the process of mural painting and the artist(s) at work, and spread the word to the community about this project.
- McGuffey and the Bridge PAI will provide the muralists with photos of the finished mural for artist portfolios. Due to the impermanent nature of the work, we’d like to ensure muralists have documented records of their creations.
- Each mural’s completion will coincide with a First Friday, where the mural will be unveiled at the First Friday opening followed by an artist meet-and-greet / talk. To account for COVID-19, we will facilitate an opportunity for a virtual reception and recorded artist talk / interview, available on our website (as well as The Bridge PAI / CMP’s respective websites).  

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Because McGuffey is an association and not a non-profit, our funding for community projects needs to be raised outside the art center. Through this program, McGuffey hopes to share our physical space with the community and create lasting relationships with local artists as well as with local arts organizations. 

What will the money go toward?
Our $4,750 fundraising goal includes the materials cost for three 6-month long murals (~$500 per mural) and an artist stipend for each mural (~$1,000 per artist). Any money raised above this goal will go toward increasing artist stipends to compensate artists for their time and creative labor. 

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We hope you’ll join us in this effort and we thank you for taking the time to consider this project. ♥

McGuffey Art Center